How Much Time Should You Take Off Work for Wedding Planning?

It’s no secret that wedding planning can feel like the ultimate full-time job. You’ll find yourself sneaking away at lunch time to take vendor phone calls and staying up way past your normal bedtime to arrange seating charts and color code your wedding decoration spreadsheet. Your weekends, which in the past were filled with brunch plans and relaxing afternoons, are now filled with trips to craft stores and doing DIY projects with your closest friends and family members.

When it starts to seem like the tasks on your wedding to-do list keep piling up with no end in sight, you might want to consider taking a few days off of work throughout your wedding planning process to dive into all-things wedding without any work interruptions. You might also start to notice that you want to take a few days off here and there for your bridal shower and bachelorette party, not to mention the week of your actual wedding.

To make sure you’re not using all of your vacation days for the year on wedding plans, here’s a recommended guide of how many days to take off for wedding planning or wedding plans.

1. One Day a Quarter

If your engagement period spans over a year or so set a plan for yourself where you take off one day each quarter of the year. That way, you make sure that you’re planning your days off over the course of a few months and they aren’t back-to-back or during a month when things at work are picking up and your boss really needs you there. Planning to take just one day off each quarter will also let you use that day to take care of more immediate things so that you can prioritize what needs to be focused on every couple of months.

2. A Day or Two for Your Bachelorette Party

Take a look at your allotted vacation days for the year. If you notice that you either don’t have a lot left or you want to save them for your honeymoon, plan a bachelorette party around a long holiday weekend or one that requires you to only take a day or two off of work.

3. A Couple of Personal Days

If you have a bunch of sick days you have been saving or ones that have rolled over from last year, pick a handful of them and use them for personal days. When you take these personal days, use them to do something relaxing. You’ll want a day or two to take your mind off of everything, from wedding planning to your work to-do list, and just relax.

4. A Few Days Before the Wedding

Try to plan in advance and take the week or a couple of days leading up to your wedding off of work. You’ll want to keep focused on last-minute tasks, beauty appointments, and spending time with close friends and family members who traveled from far away to be close to you for the wedding. If you don’t have many vacation days left before the wedding, perhaps have a conversation with your boss to see if you can work longer hours or even weekends leading up the wedding so that you can make up for the hours you take off the week of your wedding.